Mind, Brain and Meditation

Basic intro....

Humans have meditated for thousands of years, for religious purposes or just to quiet the mind.Most people assume that meditation is all about stopping thoughts, getting rid of emotions, somehow controlling the mind, but actually it’s much different than that,It’s more about stepping back, seeing the thought clearly — witnessing it coming and going — without judgment, but with a relaxed, focus mind.Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day.When the subjects stopped doing a specific task and were not really doing anything special, there was an increase in activity in the area of the brain where we process thoughts and feelings. It is described as a kind of resting network. And it was this area that was most active during nondirective meditation.The moment you start meditating, you’re activating those areas of your brain that are often neglected, especially those tied to regions like the lateral prefrontal cortex that manage anxiety, emotion, and fear.Typically, brain activity is at its highest in these areas when we are at rest,It represents a kind of basic operating system, a resting network that takes over when external tasks do not require our attention. It is remarkable that a mental task like nondirective meditation results in even higher activity in this network than regular rest,The study indicates that nondirective meditation allows for more room to process memories and emotions than during concentrated meditation, When the subjects let their minds drift through spontaneous thoughts, images, and emotions, the researchers noticed increased activity in the parts of the brain associated with "attention, mind wandering, retrieval of episodic memories, and emotional processing.

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Emptying of mind during meditation

That’s not true when you meditate! Your brain is very active but during meditation what happens is that in different parts of the brain, neurons fire at the same frequency and at the same time. This kind of synchronicity never happens at other times — it happens only in meditation. It’s called ‘phase and frequency locking in’.
In meditation, your mind transcends…. The two wrong terms used in yogic literature are: concentration and emptiness. The very attempt to empty my mind is also a thought. The right word is transcendence — when the mind gets linked to the cosmic mind.
Literally, the cosmic mind is a possibility field correlated with the super mind; it’s not local. It is what they call the zero-point energy field of the universe. Not everyone would agree with the terminology — in vedanta, we call it Brahmn. The most comfortable terminology that everyone agrees with is ‘non-local.’ That is, no location in space or time; it is also the realm of possibility; in Indian literature, it is also called the akashic field.
It’s a very difficult concept to understand for people for you leave the material world behind. When you measure a particle, it has units of mass and energy. But when it is left alone, unobserved, not measuring it, when it is not interacting with other particles, it stops being a particle; it becomes a wave. A wave — of what? A wave of possibility! A wave has no units of mass and energy and it is spread out across the whole universe. Which is very difficult for people to get — even Einstein did not understand this. He had problems accepting this and today also scientists have trouble with this.No one argues that the universe has no location-space. When you meditate, you are in samadhi; you go to the ground state where there is no observer or process of observation and so there is no mental activity — what is called rishi devata chandas or observer, process of observation and what is seen. It is transcendence to the field of possibility and that’s when the brain is superactive, coherent and creative. That’s nirvikalpa samadhi.

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This truly meditative state could also be brought about by introducing chemicals, isn’t it?

No, but what could be brought about by introducing chemicals is altered states of consciousness that can hint at this state — LSD, mushrooms, and hallucinogenic drugs in general will stop some of the editing in the brain. The normal brain is the brain of the conditioned brain — where for instance there is collective memory reinforced every day. See the newspaper today — brothers killing each other, mayhem somewhere, war elsewhere — it’s a replay, recycling of the cultural, social, historical mind, the Mahabharata being played out daily and transcendence is beyond all that. Transcendence is what
the Buddhists call pure mind; what J Krishnamurti called the whole mind as opposed to the fragmented mind.
It is now established that meditators, diligent in their practice, actually grow the prefrontal part of their brain — which is a recent part of our evolution — consciously. Consciousness expands, the brain too grows physically.

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You mean the physical brain grows — so we would have larger heads with evolving consciousness?

If your consciousness grows, your brain grows, too; that is, the prefrontal cortex. We have three brains, the reptilian brain, 300 million years old; the limbic or emotional brain, 100 million years old and the cortical brain which is only four million years old. This part of the brain grew expansively with use of language as we could communicate our minds with each other. But about the size of the head — perhaps it would be larger tens of millions of years hence, for the brain grows by less than a fraction of a millimetre.
For those of you who are curious as to how meditation changes the brain, this is for you. Although this may be slightly technical, bear with me because it’s really interesting. The brain, and how we are able to mold it, is fascinating and nothing short of amazing. Here are the brain areas you need to know:
(a)Lateral prefrontal cortex: the part of the brain that allows you to look at things from a more rational, logical and balanced perspective. In the book, we call it the Assessment Center. It is involved in modulating emotional responses (originating from the fear center or other parts of the brain), overriding automatic behaviors/habits and decreasing the brain’s tendency to take things personally.
Medial prefrontal cortex: the part of the brain that constantly references back to you, your perspective and experiences. Many people call this the “Me Center” of the brain because it processes information related to you, including when you are daydreaming, thinking about the future, reflecting on yourself, engaging in social interactions, inferring other people’s state of mind or feeling empathy for others. We call it the Self-Referencing Center.
What’s interesting about the Medial PreFrontal Cortex (mPFC) is that it actually has two sections:

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More info about Brain and Meditation

(b)Ventromedial medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) – involved in processing information related to you and people that you view as similar to you. This is the part of the brain that can cause you to end up taking things too personally, which is why we referred to it as the unhelpful aspect of the Self-Referencing Center in the book. (In reality, this brain area has many important and helpful functions – since we were focusing on overcoming anxiety, depression and habits you want to change, we referred to it as unhelpful because it often causes increases in rumination/worry and exacerbates anxious or depressive thoughts/states/feelings.)
Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex (dmPFC) – involved in processing information related to people who you perceive as being dissimilar from you. This very important part of the brain is involved in feeling empathy (especially for people who we perceive of as not being like us) and maintaining social connections.
Insula: the part of the brain that monitors bodily sensations and is involved in experiencing “gut-level” feelings. Along with other brain areas, it helps “guide” how strongly you will respond to what you sense in your body (i.e., is this sensation something dangerous or benign?). It is also heavily involved in experiencing/feeling empathy.
Amygdala: the alarm system of the brain, what most refer to as the “Fear Center.” It's a part of the brain that is responsible for many of our initial emotional responses and reactions, including the “fight-or-flight” response. (Along with the Insula, this is what we referred to as the Uh Oh Center.)

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How do emotions like anger and jealousy affect the brain?

Most of the time, however, the mind is in the saddle. Conscious control is ours and always has been. There is no limit to what we can inspire the brain to achieve. It would be ironic if anyone turned away from super brain for being too unbelievable, because if you could only see your untapped potential, you would realize that you already own a super brain.
Emotions that cause separation like hostility, anger, fear, resentment, shame and guilt — these emotions cause disruption of limbic or emotional brains which means interference with cell repair mechanism and so disrupt healing ability. It causes disruption of hormone levels, of self-regulatory mechanisms.
On the other hand, particularly the four emotions that the Buddhists talk about — loving kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity — the four divine emotions actually cause the limbic brain to go into symphony that accelerates the healing mechanism.

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Is there a distinction between you and the brain?

We do, but many neuroscientists don’t. There are two schools of neuroscientists — one is Rudy’s and the other is like those of Francis Crick who was totally against this idea. Crick was a materialist and we don’t agree with him for he believed that consciousness is produced by the brain but there is no theory on that now. The brain is not the source of your consciousness — if you use instruments like TV sets to access 24 channels, that does not mean the TV set is producing the programmes.
Your consciousness produces programmes and if you have a good instrument (brain), then you have good reception. It makes the difference between perceptive reality and fundamental reality. The cosmic mind is Brahmn. You are not your brain; you are the user of your brain. You can rewire your brain to access Higher Consciousness. Mann is mind; buddhi is intellect; chetana is consciousness.

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How about empathy or mirror neuron?

Empathy or mirror neurons — yes he is on the right track. It is basically your mind; it reflects your fundamental mind. Just as there is one field of electricity, there is one field of consciousness with infinite potential. Brahmand is the universe, and when you tap into that, your whole brain functions better.
The Gaia theory looks at earth as one organism so you synchronise your beat with that of the earth’s and here you go a step further and allow it to happen to the beat of the universe. This is not about “trying to do it” — you just allow it to happen when the mind calms down and becomes still. You allow your mind to settle down as samadhi is a natural state, a state before thoughts arise and the state into which the thought subsides.

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Is it right to compare the human brain to a computer?

Research on meditation has shown that empathy and compassion are higher in those who practice meditation regularly.All these models are wrong because these are all mechanistic models and consciousness cannot be looked at as being mechanistic. We can use these as metaphors, but they are still misleading. The non-local mind is a discontinuity, the space between our thoughts. Memory is non-local. So you cannot download it on a chip. That’s nonsense; it’s obsolete, reductionist science.
We are so attached to our own thoughts and desires that we easily say “my mind.” But consciousness could be a field like electromagnetism, extending throughout the universe. Electrical signals permeate the brain, but we don’t say “my electricity,” and it’s dubious that we should say “my mind.”
…The brains of the Buddha, Jesus, and rishis reached a level that has inspired us for centuries, but as a biological creation, their brains were no different from that of any healthy adult today. The Buddha’s brain followed where his mind led, which is why all the great spiritual teachers declared that anyone could make the same journey that they did. It’s only a matter of setting your foot on the path and paying attention to the subtle signals picked up by your brain. Since it is attuned to the quantum level, your brain can receive anything that creation has to offer. In that sense, the great saints, sages and seers weren’t more favoured by God than you and I are; they were braver about following a trail of clues that led them to the very source of their awareness…
The barriers that keep us earthbound are of our own making. They include the barrier that divides the world “in here” from the world “out there.” Another barrier isolates the human mind as a unique product in the universe, which is otherwise devoid of intelligence – or so the prevailing theories of cosmology assert. In pockets of speculative thinking, however, a growing number of cosmologists have found the courage to look in a different direction, toward a universe teeming with intelligence, creativity, and Self-awareness. Such a universe would indeed know that we were coming…

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Mind and Meditation

During mediation, you first have to still the mind and switch off all the thoughts, and in that silence, having access to the right brain way of thinking and perceiving, as well as the left brain way of thinking and perceiving, insights can spontaneously occur.The more you practice meditation, the more you pump up those parts of your brain that help control emotion and anxiety responses,Reality-making is every person’s task. There is no real look to the world, no anchor we can drop once and for all. Reality keeps evolving (thank goodness), and the biggest clue to this lies inside your brain. One reality after another is packed into it. The reality of the reptilian brain is still in there, but it has been incorporated through evolution into higher realities, each one matched by a new physical structure.
The brain mirrors the reality that each person is making at this very moment. Your mind is the rider; your brain is the horse. Anyone who has ridden horses knows that they can balk, fight the bridle, become frightened, stop to munch grass by the wayside, or bolt for home. The rider hangs on, yet most of the time he is in command. We all relate to our brains by hanging on during the episodes when hardwired imprints, impulses drives, and habits are in control. No horse has ever bolted as wildly as a brain gone awry…
When we (subject) perceive an object (or an idea), we first evolve that object with in ourselves. Then as per our conditioning, we categories the object as good or bad (duality), which gives us pain or apparent pleasure. Let’s explode the transaction between an object and subject. Objects are made of five gross elements viz Space, Air, Fire, Water and Earth. These objects are perceived by five senses i.e. Sound, Touch, Form, Taste and Smell respectively. For example when we look at a menu in a restaurant, our senses passes on the perceived menu items to the mind, which has three steps - Lower mind (Mann) : Lower mind is directly connected with five senses and controls choices, emotions and feelings etc. Flipping through various menu items is an activity carried out by lower mind. Intelligence (Buddhi) : Lower mind passes on the menu choices to intelligence, which sits between lower mind and Chitta. Intelligence controls discrimination, decision, thought and rationality etc. The final selection of a menu item is made by intelligence. Chitta : Chitta is the basic faculty through which mind operates i.e. combination of conscious, subconscious, unconscious, memory and more. Chitta controls higher wisdom (Viveka).